Yes

Submitted by John R (United States), Apr 7, 2006 at 05:43

Excellent article.

Yes, there could be other reasons.

I am beginning to think poverty is a source too of the violence. When Muslims commit violence, Westerners see it as a result of Islamic beliefs, and yet when these things, these violence happen to the non Muslim world, religious beliefs is widely regarded as not the source. It could be poverty, culture, reaction to oppression or discrimination such as the case in the US with American blacks, who really get bad treatment when you take a look at the double standards of treatment between whites and blacks. It could also be that there are just those with bad personalities, or maybe intelligence, those radicals are a the bottom of society's intelligence scale, like studies on IQ says, that the less inteligent generally have more propensity for violence, hence radicals have less intelligence if we apply this reason.

Education. Yes, that could be another. Culture another. You know these reasons are used to explain discontent and violence in parts of the world that are not Islamic, but when the Islamic world get violent, we Westerners quickly attribute it to the Islamic religion.

I think we really need to look for other reasons if we are to solve this problem, or mitigate it. I am not saying it is not the religion, Islam. That is part of it I believe. I am sure there are others who would disagree but the religion I believe is part of it in this case. It's contributing factor is one that is in question because whenever violence happen in non Islamic countries, most Western pundits never think of religion as a reason. It can also be differences in ideology, like the difference in ideology of the population or government between communism and democracy, the ideology of communism.... govenment philosophy, that is another, tradition that could be another reason.... modernism another....

John R.

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